It took a long time yesterday to drive the 175 miles to the Mexican border but it was the easiest crossing yet. Our Guatemalan papers were just a day old and our vehicle permit for Mexico was still valid so the only thing we had to do was have our passports stamped. The relief I felt at entering Mexico defies reason. We are still in a foreign country and we have two thousand miles to drive before we are home. But Mexico feels familiar and it is good to be back in “civilization.” We returned to the Plaza Inn in Tabachula where we spent our last night in Mexico nearly two months ago. Today we made it all the way back to Acayucan, a convenient stop along the auto piste, where we had stayed back in December
We have been listening to audio books to pass the time while driving. We have covered subjects from Churchill and Roosevelt to the genome project. Today we began A Year in the Life, a travel story by the author of Under the Tuscan Sun. It isn’t the best we have listened to but it has already gotten our travel juices flowing just at the time we were thinking “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” Is there no hope for us?
The only drawback to driving to Central America is the return trip. For all practical purposes the trip was over once we left Panama. There were still some places to visit in Costa Rica and we were looking forward to seeing Julio in Honduras but that is hardly enough to warrant the 4,000 miles we had yet to cover.
The past two days were our most productive of the trip, mileage wise. We spent a lot on tolls on the auto piste but we covered 340 miles from Acayucan to Tuxpam on Monday. From Veracruz on the road skirted the Gulf of Mexico and we found a decent hotel out of town on the road to Tampico.
Tuesday was another long distance drive with little to report. The roads were OK and we made good time despite the intermittent rain. It is a flat and uninspiring part of Mexico but it is better than driving on the winding mountain roads of Guatemala and Honduras. The nearer we get to home the easier I want things to be.
We continue to have issues with the laptop, a function of the foreign providers no doubt. We can connect to the internet but cannot access anything that requires a password except for Hotmail. I spent an hour reading our online journal and looking at the photos. From all accounts it appears we have had a good trip.
We are spending our last night at Hotel Panoramico overlooking Ciudad Vitoria about 200 miles from the border at Brownsville. If all goes well we should be back in the States by early afternoon – if only in Texas.
